Excerpts

The Greatest Lawyer That Ever Lived: Patrick Henry at the Bar of History

Excerpts from the Preface by Richard Schumann

Compared with other Founding Fathers, Patrick Henry was rather inconsiderate to
historians, because he was a talker, not a pamphleteer. Unlike his principal detractor,
Thomas Jefferson (who labored perpetually to ensure that he would be revered by
future generations by saving every scrap of paper upon which he ever scribbled),
if Henry did keep journals, he destroyed them, or they were destroyed by fire or
flood. His daughters recounted how he would write beautiful poetry, read the verses
aloud to his family and, promptly afterwards, slip the poems into the fire, believing
that it was unseemly for a statesman such as he to be known as a poet. Happily,
though, enough primary source data exists to piece together a real, living, breathing
man who can not only interest, but exhilarate, an audience of today. Naturally,
I am always delighted to hear others’ scholarly insights into what made Mr. Henry
tick.

Which brings me to George Morrow’s excellent and thorough studies of Patrick Henry.
I am not a lawyer (though I play one on TV). Extant documents prove that Henry was
an extraordinary lawyer. But it takes a lawyer to know a lawyer, and thanks to George
Morrow’s wonderful insights expressed so amusingly in The Greatest Lawyer, I am
better able to fathom Henry’s legal genius, and so may the casual reader just looking
for a good time. I might even go so far as to suggest that law professors would
be well advised to make The Greatest Lawyer required reading for their students.
The nature of man does not change and the tactics employed by Henry in the 18th
century courtrooms of Virginia would be equally effective today.

Richard Schumann
The Colonial Williamsburg's Patrick Henry

Excerpts from "The Greatest Lawyer," Part I of the Book, by George Morrow

That Henry got amazing results in mysterious ways was a common observation. Of his
son’s speech in the Parson’s Cause, John Henry told Judge Winston it was given “without
Hesitation or Embarrassment . . . on a Subject, of which I did not think he had
any Knowledge.” Judge Roane told of a case in which Henry was so persuasive the
jury found his client not guilty, despite the fact his guilt had already been decided
and the only issue was whether it was murder! Another friend recalled the time when
one of Henry’s oratorical assaults on the tyrannical “British King and ministry”
so inflamed spectators sitting in the gallery of the House that they “all at once
. . . rushed out. It was at first supposed that the House was on fire. Not so.”
So fiery was Henry’s language that someone ran up and doused the royal flag on the
cupola. Judge Roane also recalled his father telling him about going up to hear
Henry speak in the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg with a Scotsman named Bradfute,
“a man of learning,” who became so “enchanted with his eloquence as to have unconsciously
squirted tobacco juice from the gallery on the heads of the members, and to have
nearly fallen onto the House floor.” On another occasion, a thunderstorm broke over
the capitol just as Henry was “depicting the awful immensity” of a decision that,
he suggested, “the ethereal beings were awaiting with anxiety.” Suddenly a peal
of thunder shook the building. Henry’s audience of veteran politicians “broke up
in confusion.”

Excerpts from the Preface regarding "Patrick Henry and the Puffing Squirt,"
Part
II of the Book

Thomas Jefferson’s legal abilities – or rather, inabilities – are also explored
in the study. I pray that Jeffersonian scholars and groupies will forgive me for
being very biased about the Henry/Jefferson relationship explored in such great
detail in Puffing Squirt. I feel duty bound to defend the integrity of the gentleman
I’ve been living with for 15 years, particularly as he was unable to do so himself.
Jefferson, after all, waited until Henry’s death before he so viciously maligned
the object of his jealousy. Jeffersonians should read this study, the better to
understand their man. One can only imagine the bewilderment of Henry’s first biographer,
William Wirt, when he compared the recollections of Jefferson to those of his other
correspondents. The source of Jefferson’s venomous hostility towards Henry has been
discussed by other historians, but George Morrow delves into aspects of Jefferson’s
character that no others have. Were Henry to read this work, he might very well
say, “Vindication and redemption at last!”. . .

Excerpts regarding "Patrick Henry and the Puffing Squirt,"
Part II of the Book, by
George Morrow

Among chroniclers of what he has described as the “duplicity” of Thomas Jefferson,
Joseph Ellis stands out, both for his insightful analyses of his subject and his
genial acceptance of the hostility that seems to go with being Jefferson exposer-inchief.
In American Sphinx, Ellis compares Jefferson’s enmity for Patrick Henry to his hatred
of Alexander Hamilton and finds that Henry, like Hamilton, “was a youthful prodigy
of impoverished origins . . . whose visible cravings for greatness violated the
understated code of the true Virginia aristocrat. To make matters worse, Hamilton
as an opponent was equally formidable on his feet and in print.” Like Jefferson,
Henry and Hamilton were lawyers; unlike Jefferson, they did not fear confrontation.
How did a shy, scholarly lawyer deal with conflict? If his name was Jefferson, he
went to ground. “Cautious and shy,” was how Hamilton described him in 1792, “wrapped
up in impenetrable silence and mystery, he reserves his abhorrence for the arcana
of a certain snug sanctuary [Monticello], where seated on his pivot chair, and involved
in all the obscurity of political mystery and deception . . . he circulates his
poison thro’ the medium of [Phillip Freneau’s Republican newspaper] National Gazette.”

The comparison between Hamilton and Patrick Henry is apt for another reason. If
Jefferson disliked Alexander Hamilton, he was truly obsessed with taking revenge
on Henry whom (he said) “had inflicted a wound on his spirit” that “only the all
healing grave” could cure. Jefferson was convinced that Henry had orchestrated a
Virginia Assembly inquiry into his inept and seemingly cowardly conduct as Governor
of Virginia during the British invasion of 1780–81. Even worse for Jefferson than
the thought of Henry’s five term record of success in the same job was the mortifying
recollection of Henry’s dominance in Virginia political and legislative affairs.
In a 1784 letter, Jefferson asked James Madison – in code – to “devoutly pray” for
Henry’s death. At other times, Jefferson described Henry as “implacable,” “a great
foe” and a potential dictator seeking “every power . . . over our persons.” If Jefferson’s
vocabulary for Henry reminds us of the monsters in the old sagas it is because Henry
inspired in Jefferson a deep, archetypal loathing. For most Virginians, Patrick
Henry would remain the revered defender of their country’s liberties. For Jefferson,
he was a threat to both country and ego; a would-be despot and usurper of his peace
of mind.

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